


Every Breath You Take

by SouldierToTheEnd



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Dummy is a film connoisseur, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not MCU Phase Two Compliant, Stalking, Tony and his Bots - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-12 22:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4497213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouldierToTheEnd/pseuds/SouldierToTheEnd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>And there he was. Shirtless, on his stomach, mouth open, a fine line of drool lingering on the corner of his lips and ending on the pillow. Dummy made a soft, high beep before focusing his camera on the sleeping man.</i> </p>
<p>Dummy’s got a secret. An infatuation with a certain somebody. Whose name starts with S and rhymes with eve, and has abs like you would not believe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Every Breath You Take 物似主人形（又名：跟主人一样痴汉的Dummy是怎么撮合盾铁的）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4657749) by [asadeseki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asadeseki/pseuds/asadeseki)



> So this story was entirely inspired by [this post](http://souldiertotheend.tumblr.com/post/126038526859/kommendance-im-not-sure-if-this-has-been). I read that post and thought we definitely needed a story like that. There are a lot of fics that show Dummy and the other bots liking Steve and thinking he's nice and sweet and everything, but I wanted to go full out with how much Dummy adores Steve and how unintentionally creepy he gets. For those of you who might be worried about the stalking tag, keep in mind that it's not out of malicious intent and it's more of a result of Dummy not knowing how to express himself properly. Because he is a robot and the only socialization skills he knows are from Tony, who we all know isn't the most well-adjusted of people.
> 
> Oh and the title is totally from that Police song. You know the one.

It was dark on this particular floor of the tower, complete silence, and for once its resident was asleep, instead of spending his hours punishing a punching bag. He was even snoring.

Of course, none of this information succeeded in deterring the robot that was slowly sneaking into the living room.

“Really?” JARVIS sighed. “All of this and you still persist?”

The robot let out a series of beeping noises that sounded vaguely like a whine and strangely humanlike in its emotion.

“Dummy, this is the first time in weeks Captain Rogers has slept so soundly. Go back to the workshop, Sir is going to want a cup of coffee soon.”

The robot made a negative sounding beep. His wheels were creaking slightly as he rolled down a hall and towards the master bedroom, the camera attached to his strut zooming in on the ajar door.

“Dummy!” The AI’s voice went quieter but no less harsh; in fact if any of the Avengers were present, they’d worry that he was going Skynet, judging by the vitriol in his British-accented voice. “Leave. Now. The Captain will visit the workshop later, and you can see him then. Do not proceed—”

If Dummy had the appropriate appendage, he’d probably stick his tongue out at the ceiling. JARVIS had control over the whole tower and, by extension, had his own programming linked to the robot, although he couldn’t control him. And so he knew just what Dummy would do if he could.

“Such maturity,” he said in a long suffering voice.

Dummy entered the room.

And there he was. Shirtless, on his stomach, mouth open, a fine line of drool lingering on the corner of his lips and ending on the pillow. Dummy made a soft, high beep before focusing his camera on the sleeping man.

The robot had recently developed a (fairly distressing, according to Tony) hobby that JARVIS can’t help but blame Captain Rogers for. One day, about a month ago, while Tony was busy working on a new prototype bow for Clint, Steve was sketching with his charcoal. Dummy was by his side, having brought a now-forgotten smoothie (which the Captain politely took a sip). The robot had let out a series of questioning beeps that pulled Steve out of his work.

He frowned. “What is it?”

Dummy waved his arm wildly.

Steve stared flabbergasted for a moment before JARVIS translated. “He wants to know why you make art.”

“Uh…” Dummy continued to beep excitedly. “Well, I like it. I find it soothing…” Steve looked down at his drawing. It was Tony, bent over his work table, tongue sticking out, focusing on his holographic schematics. “And it helps me keep good memories.”

Dummy didn’t react, as if waiting for him to continue.

Steve shrugged. “Drawing is what I do when I want to remember something good. Make it permanent so I can go look it over again and remember.”

The robot was silent a long time before the moment was ruined by Tony yelling at him to get him a screwdriver.

Right now Dummy was rounding the bed, moving closer. He focused on the drool, the bedhead, the naked back, the long blond eyelashes. His wheels rolled to the left while the camera took a long shot over Steve’s entire body. The camera then zoomed in on the lower half, on the backside covered by thin pajama pants.

The wheels kept rolling until it hit the bedside table. The wood shook, an old picture frame fell over, and the lamp crashed to the floor.

Steve leapt, automatically reaching to his side for his shield, which was thankfully at the other side of the room and not actually by his side or the robot would’ve been in real trouble. Dummy let out a distressed beep and moved quickly towards the door, shaking visibly.

Steve blinked and relaxed when he saw it was only the robot. “Dummy?” he asked in a surprised tone. “What are you doing here?” Dummy began to roll back and forth frantically. Steve watched for a minute before looking at the ceiling. “JARVIS, why is Dummy in my room?”

JARVIS sighed.

 

* * *

 

After roughly 16 hours, Tony surfaced from his work, took a look around and said, “Where’s my coffee?”

He glanced at the other side of the workshop to see Butterfingers and You at their charging stations, quiet for once. Dummy was nowhere to be found.

“Hey, J, where is that stupid robot?”

Silence. Tony frowned. Oh no, what has he got up to now? For a scary moment, Tony’s brain conjured up the worst scenarios, that the robot fell into the elevator shaft, that he got short-circuited, that his whole personality got wiped—

The workshop’s glass door opened and in came a shirtless Rogers and a downcast Dummy, acting like he was a little boy who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. And what was Dummy doing with Butterfingers’ camera?

“He was on my floor,” Steve said, watching Tony’s blank stare. “…in my room.”

“Ah,” Tony said, still staring and still uncomprehending.

When Tony didn’t say more, Steve added, “He was taking a video of me.”

“Video…”

“While I was asleep.”

Dummy moved to hide under the work table, trying to fold his arm to fit. The two men watched silently as the robot accidentally shook the table. He stretched, his arm knocking around, and caused the table to up end, falling to its side and completely exposing the robot once more. He turned to look at the men, shuddered, and then raced out of the workshop.

“Why was he…?” Tony started.

“Well I was hoping you could explain that to me. You created him after all.”

“He’s a learning AI, like JARVIS but less sophisticated. I can’t be responsible for every single thing he does—”

“Tony,” Steve interrupted. “It’s fine. It’s not that big of a deal. Just, I don’t know, that’s weird even for him.”

“Yeah, well.” Tony waved a hand lazily in Dummy’s direction before grinning at Steve. “Wow, Rogers, didn’t expect you to be giving a free show,” he said, leering at Steve’s bare chest.

Steve’s cheeks tinged a light pink. “If that’s all I’m going back to bed. You should sleep too.”

“Sure, I will,” Tony lied.

Steve rolled his eyes before leaving the workshop.

Once the captain was gone, Tony turned his table back up and with fake casualness asked JARVIS, “So, why was Dummy recording Capsicle while he was having his beauty sleep?”

After an uncharacteristic pause, the AI said, “It seems Dummy became inspired by Captain Rogers’ art and wished to emulate it in a different medium.”

“But Steve, specifically? While he was asleep? Unless he’s been doing this to the other Avengers.” Though Tony would love to see Dummy try to record Natasha. Did that spy assassin honey trap ever sleep? Of course, if Dummy had been trying to record her, he’d be dead already and Tony would have to avenge the dumb bot. Or something.

“No. Only the Captain.”

“Huh.” Instead of asking inquiring more, Tony headed towards the coffee machine to prepare for another ten hours of inventing. JARVIS was relieved.

 

* * *

 

Eight months ago Steve was leading a group of headstrong strangers into what felt like a suicide mission. Against aliens. Though he knew he shouldn’t be surprised; after all he fought against someone called the Red Skull who wield the Tesseract with abandon. He himself went from a 90-pound weakling to 240 pounds of pure muscle. Who also happened to sleep through 70 years. At this point nothing should be very surprising.

After touring America and seeing her changes, Tony invited him and the rest of the team to live in the tower. For being someone who claimed to work alone, Stark was eager to continue the Avengers Initiative. Steve was skeptical, but so far is working brilliantly. These strong personalities, after working out their kinks and outside of the influence of Loki’s scepter, managed to fit perfectly on the field and off (well, mostly). Even Tony, who Steve was at first unimpressed (and disappointed with if he was being honest), turned out not to be a complete asshole. All of his bravado disappeared the more time he spent with him, especially with Tony sleep-deprived and fresh off an engineering binge.

(With those tired but beautiful brown eyes and mussed up hair and—)

Steve woke up promptly at six and left the tower for his morning jog. When he returned to his room, wiping the light sweat from his temple, JARVIS said, “Captain, I have prepared a bath for you with comfortably warm water.”

“Thanks, but I take forever with baths. I’ll just stick with the shower.”

“Captain, if I may insist, there is nothing wrong with allowing yourself to indulge. Especially after Dummy’s inexcusable—”

“It’s fine. Really. And no to the bath, thank you though.”

Steve entered the bathroom, tugging his clothes off, hoping this time they wouldn’t disappear (his shirts have gained the distressing habit of disappearing, he should probably look into that). He reached inside the shower for the handles, but the water didn’t pour out.

“Captain, the bath’s water would go to waste. I know you dislike being wasteful.”

Steve chuckled, turning back towards the extravagant tub that had ample room for a super soldier. “JARVIS, that’s cheating.”

“I only look out for your best interests, Captain.”

As far as contemporary technology goes, JARVIS was one of the most useful. Of course Tony was careful in explaining, when he first introduced Steve to his AI, that JARVIS was the most advanced of his kind and not everyone had an AI in their homes. From the beginning JARVIS had been considerate and accommodating, helping Steve at every possible moment. And Steve couldn’t help but marvel at Tony’s genius for creating something so extraordinary.

After soaking for ten minutes, feeling his fingers prune, Steve inclined his head towards the ceiling as JARVIS spoke again. “Captain, the coffee machine has finished brewing, ready for consumption. There are several cartons of eggs and packets of bacon for you to cook your breakfast. However, if you wish, I can easily order in from a five-star restaurant.”

“It’s all right, I’ll just cook,” Steve chuckled.

After breakfast, Steve went down to the workshop, where predictably Tony hadn’t slept.

“Excuse you,” Tony said, waving a screwdriver at Steve’s amused expression. “In case you forgot, I’m in charge of a multi-million dollar company that’s the leading research in clean energy, along with being in this little superhero club and having to update all of your gear and weapons while still working on my new armor and—”

“So what’s that schematic?” Steve gestured at the holograph.

Cut off mid-rant, Tony whirled around and squinted at the projection. “It’s a, well—”

“Looks a weirdly complicated toilet.”

“Huh. Hey, why did I put repulsor tech?”

“Apparently you were inspired by Japanese prank shows, Sir,” said JARVIS in a long suffering tone.

“So.” Tony turned to face Steve and shrugged. “Toilets are important. Repulsor tech is the future.”

“Right.” Steve was trying hard not to grin. So far he was failing. “Let me distract you from that no doubt very important toilet. I still have some leftover pancakes. If we hurry, maybe Thor and Clint haven’t eaten them all.”

Tony took one more look at the toilet. “Fine. Lead the way.”

Steve surveyed the room, noting Butterfingers and You in the back in an intense game of Checkers. “Where’s Dummy?”

“Probably hiding in a closet, embarrassed and shit. Don’t worry about it, he’ll get over it.”

“But—”

“Seriously, Steve. You are too sympathetic to him, you know he’s just a robot, right? Not even a good one.”

“He does have feelings,” Steve argued, feeling weirdly defensive.

“Whatever. Let’s just go eat.”

Barely a minute after they left, You knocked the board off the table and Butterfingers beeped angrily at him. They both moved away from the table and to the center of the workshop, where they communicated in increasingly louder noises and eventually ended up knocking their struts against the other. This continued for a few minutes until the glass door slid open and Dummy rolled in, the camera still perched on top of his arm. He rolled over to the others bots and waved the camera at them, making enthusiastic sounds.

Butterfingers and You forgot their quarrel and gathered round Dummy, as he connected the camera to Tony’s main computer and a holographic interface popped up. It showed a blue-tinged video of Steve in the gym, pounding away at a punching bag; he paused momentarily to glance at the camera. “Hey, Dummy, how are you?” He patted the top of the camera before moving his attention back to his exercise.

The scene changed and this one was of Steve drawing in the workshop. “Don’t move,” he said. “I’m drawing you. Never really drew robots before, mostly do landscapes and people.” Instead of focusing on the sketchbook, the camera zoomed in on Steve’s smile.

The two robots on either side of Dummy bopped their heads up and down excitedly.

 

* * *

 

Steve didn’t spend much time on his floor, opting to hang around the communal floor, the gym, or the workshop. Really the place only existed for him to sleep and he hadn’t been there the past few days; being a supersoldier meant not having to sleep as much. He did crash on the couch in the living room for four hours, falling asleep while watching a bad Syfy original movie. And so it was a bit of a surprise when he went to his room, shrugging off his shirt, before stopping and staring.

Huge floral arrangements sat on both bedside tables, extravagant, the kind rich people would buy for 200 dollars. There were multiple balloons tethered to his bedpost, one of which a big red heart with the words I LOVE YOU printed on the side.

“Uh—”

“My apologies, Captain, but Dummy insisted on it as a form of recompense.”

“This is a bit over the top.”

“Actually, I had to restrain him. He wanted to put rose petals on your bed.”

Rose petals? While Steve was aware that Dummy favored him a great deal, rose petals were not what he was expecting. Nor that heart-shaped balloon. He said, “Is Dummy trying to make romantic gestures towards me?”

“Not in the way that you think. Dummy holds you in high regard and wished to make some sort of gesture. He appears to have taken inspiration from TV shows and films on how to apologize to a loved one.”

“Ah.” Well that certainly was easier to fathom than a robot being in love with him. “How did he manage to move this all here?”

“Butterfingers and You helped.”

Not for the first time since the incident a week ago, he wondered what the robot did with the video. Of him sleeping. He won’t lie, that was rather unsettling. He refused to ask JARVIS, concluding that it was better off not to know.

He ended up moving the flowers to the kitchen, resolving to give one to Natasha and the other to Pepper, and let the balloons float in a closet.

 

* * *

 

“What are you, some sort of indie director?” Tony muttered, ignoring the camera lens shoved into his face. This new hobby of Dummy was irritating but at least he wasn’t going trigger-happy with the fire extinguisher. Though this was easier when Steve was the subject of Dummy’s new art project. “The least you could do is give me some coffee. I don’t even know why I keep you here; should’ve kept you in storage.” The camera was thrust even further into Tony’s space before he slapped it away. “Hey, I’m working here!”

Dummy made a whining noise before turning the camera around and focusing it on his siblings. Butterfingers was mopping the floor where it was oil stained and You was bopping along to AC/DC. He whined again.

If Tony didn’t know any better, he would’ve called this _moping_ , as if Dummy was a teenager caught up in self-centered angst. This was ridiculous.

Dummy lowered his camera and set it on the table before moving over to Steve’s corner, looking down at the forgotten art supplies.

“Seriously, you’re making me depressed.” Dummy lifted his arm up to look over at Tony. “Don’t give me that. All right, I miss him too, but he’s got SHIELD work, he’ll be back in another week. Damn needy robot.”

Tony worked for another 20 minutes uninterrupted before Dummy shoved his arm into Tony’s side. He jumped, soldering iron falling out of his grip and nearly burning him before JARVIS turned it off.

“Dummy, what the hell! I swear one of these days I’m going to send you off to be recycled, you useless sack of bolts.”

Dummy whined.

“Stop. This self-pity thing is getting old and it’s my thing, I copyrighted it, I’ll sue you.” It was hard for something with no face to look so pathetic, but Dummy somehow managed to achieve it. Tony rolled his eyes and patted his strut. “Go play a board game with Butterfingers—not You, he gets too competitive. Go, shoo.” He watched as Dummy grabbed Life from the game shelf, smiling a little to himself. He picked up his soldering iron and went right back to work.

Hours passed before Tony resurfaced with the need to relieve himself. After flushing the toilet, he looked around to see Butterfingers cleaning the game up by himself and You tidying up his charging station. Dummy was gone.

“Where did that idiot ran off to now?” JARVIS didn’t respond and Tony frowned. “J?”

“Dummy doesn’t want me to tell you, sir.”

“Oh this must be good. Tell me.”

There was a pause before JARVIS said, with a hint of reluctance in his voice, “He’s in the maintenance closet one floor below you.”

“What, he has a porn dungeon now?” Tony laughed, imagining Dummy with magazines of scantily clad women. He exited his workshop and went into the elevator, wondering what Dummy got up to in his spare time.

The floor was pretty empty, mostly just storage spaces for the useless inventions he makes when he goes on an engineering binge. He found the maintenance closet quickly, pulling the door open and readying to tease Dummy.

Dummy whirled around, arm raised as if trying to stop Tony, but it was too late.

And Tony just stared. At the huge picture of Steve. At the table covered with a dozen candles. At the sweat-dampened T-shirts littered on the floor. At the Captain America merchandise.

His mouth closed and opened again to say, “You made a fucking shrine to him?”

Dummy was shaking so much, bumping into the walls, leaning away from his creator.

“Okay. You… made a shrine to him. I have no idea—J, why is there a shrine to Steve?”

JARVIS’ voice sounded exhausted, as if the last thing he wanted was to have this conversation right now. “Dummy has been taking inspiration from television on how to profess love to someone.”

“Wait, Dummy is in love with Steve?” Tony all but shrieked.

“No, sir, Dummy is incapable of being in love. He is a robot, as you know. But he has come to appreciate Steve’s presence in the workshop.”

“But why? Is it because Steve is always so nice to him and petting him and—”

“Partially,” the AI said.

“Partially? Then what’s the main reason?”

“Well, he is a learning AI, sir. He learns through observation.”

Dummy hung his arm down, shaking still, looking down on the ground. Tony glanced up at the picture of Steve. It was one of Tony’s favorite pictures of him; after a particularly grueling battle the whole team had collapsed in the rec room. They popped in a cheesy 80s flick and ordered in Thai food. Thor had taken several photos that night on his prototype Stark phone and Tony later hacked into the phone to download the photo onto his servers. Steve had thrown his head back, laughing, blue eyes looking so bright and happy, his grin infectious.

Jesus. Tony sighed. He had it so bad for Rogers that even his dumb robot noticed.

“It’s okay, buddy, I’m not mad, just surprised,” he murmured, rubbing his hand over Dummy’s arm. Dummy relaxed, leaning into the touch. “Yeah, no more rom-coms for you. Come on, let’s go work on something together, me and you.”

Later that night, Dummy showed him the video of Steve he had been working on. He leaned in his chair, watching as the image of Steve hummed along to a tune in his head while he cooked breakfast. All the robots had crowded around him. JARVIS was silent.

He groaned and lifted his tumbler of whisky to his lips.

He was so screwed.


	2. Chapter 2

This was getting ridiculous. Steve was down to one gray SHIELD sweater and a plaid button-down. At first he thought he was imagining it, that he was simply misplacing his clothes. The last he’d see them was after exercising where he threw his sweaty shirts on the ground to be cleaned later. His wardrobe really was getting smaller each week.

He shook his head as he pulled the sweater on. It’d probably got mixed up into Thor’s laundry again; it’s happened before.

In the communal kitchen, he was surprised to find Tony awake. And not just lumbering towards the coffee machine like a zombie after an all-nighter, but actually awake as in he went to sleep the night before and woke up in the morning like a normal person. And currently he was looking at Steve like he was the devil.

Steve couldn’t help but feel disappointed at that. “Hey, Tony, you look like you actually got some sleep.”

“Barely.” And then Tony laughed nervously.

“Are you all right?”

“Me? What? Never better. Peachy keen. Actually, you know I’ve always wondered who would say ‘peachy keen,’ I mean I guess you would, like that would be your thing, but what’s so keen about peaches?”

“You don’t seem all right. Is something wrong?” He moved closer to him but Tony ducked out of the way so fast that Steve blinked in confusion. “Um—”

“Really, I’m good, everything’s good. Just not used to waking up at this time, you know how it is, and why are you wearing a sweater in the middle of summer?”

“My clothes keep disappearing.”

“Your… clothes….” Tony’s eyes glazed over.

“Yeah. I figured they just got mixed up with Thor’s again. Weird thing is it’s just my shirts. My pants are all there.” He shrugged. “It’s all right though, I’m not that hot.”

The giggling that started very quickly turned into wheezing and Tony clapped Steve awkwardly on the shoulder. “‘Not that hot,’” Tony repeated.

“Uh—”

“Right. Even though it’s 92 degrees outside. Um, I’ll find your missing… shirts. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay?” Steve wondered, not for the first time, if Tony had lost his mind, watching him continue to wheeze like a dying man. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Never better.” And that set off a whole new round of giggles. Then Tony left the kitchen, without his coffee, leaving Steve incredibly perplexed.

Later that day he found a hamper full of his missing clothes, all clean and folded.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, I’m fucked, I’m fucked, what I’m going to do? Goddammit, what am I going to do?”

“If I may, sir, you can simply tell Captain Rogers your feelings.”

Tony laughed hysterically. “My feelings? What am I, a teenaged girl? ‘Not that hot,’ Jesus fucking Christ.”

“If you act like this every time you interact with the Captain, he’s going to be even more suspicious than he already is.”

“What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, looks like my robots and my AI have a crush on you because they learned from watching me drool over your abs and it made me realize how much I fucking love you?’ How is that remotely okay?”

“Sir, I do not have a—”

“J, you like him better than me.”

“That is simply not true, sir, I prioritize you over anyone else.”

Tony scoffed. “Please, I’ve seen how you favor him. ‘Is that all, Captain Rogers? Do you want me to order in your favorite lemon chicken, Captain Rogers?’”

“If it comes between you or him, I will always pick you, sir.”

Oh. Okay, he did not expect that to warm him as much as it did. “Thanks, J.”

“Always, sir.”

Tony groaned and leaned back in his chair. Most of the lights in the workshop were turned off except for the one in the hallway. All his computers were in standby mode and his projects were tucked away for the time being. His arc reactor illuminated the space in front of him in a light, calming blue. He was literally sitting in the dark and pining miserably.

He tapped his arc reactor absently. “You know, it was easier with Pepper. It wasn’t this constant anxiousness when I was around her.”

“Actually, sir, that’s not true. In some ways you were worse.”

“Let me live in my delusion in peace, seriously. You know, he’s probably straight anyway, he’d punch me in the face if I proposition him. He’d be really offended if I implied that he might be—”

“Sir, he did live in a neighborhood with a substantial homosexual population and active night life scene back in the 1940s.”

“That doesn’t mean he likes dick though!”

“I still highly doubt that he would punch you in the face.”

“So what? Am I supposed to go up to him and ask him out to dinner?”

“Well… yes.” Tony groaned again and slumped in his chair. “That is how adults would normally act in these situations.”

“Fuck off.”

Dummy was making his way over, his stupid camera still attached. The bot tapped Tony’s shoulder and whined. “What do you want?”

Dummy whined again, gesturing with his arm.

“JARVIS, translate.”

“He wants to know what happened to all the shirts.”

Tony laughed. “You seriously didn’t think you’d get to keep them? You were taking _all_ _of his shirts_.”

Dummy kept whining.

“Look, I’d love nothing more than for him to walk around shirtless. But since his pecs and abs could rupture reality as we know it, it’s probably best he’d wear clothes. The world isn’t ready for that much sexiness.” Then Tony remembered what that robot was supposed to be doing and glared at him. “Hey, didn’t I tell you to take that down that shrine—J, was he working on that at all?”

“No, sir, he was too busy going over his video. He’s tentatively calling it _All About Steve Vol. 1_.”

“After that god-awful Sandra Bullock movie?” Tony gasped. “You aren’t mine, I can’t have possibly created you.”

Dummy abruptly turned his back on Tony and moved towards the exit.

“Hey! Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you! I should take that goddamned camera away, how’d you like that?” When he knew Dummy could no longer hear him, he shook his head and glanced at the other bots. “What?” he said, feeling weirdly defensive under their unwavering stares. “You both know Dummy is the problem child.”

“Sir, just last week you declared You to be the problem child.”

“Well, that was before this whole weird obsession thing was going on. And You has anger issues, like seriously, what’s his problem with ice cube trays?” Tony shook his head. “God, worse than Bruce, at least Bruce has a reason to be angry.”

You let out an irritated-sounding beep and Tony ignored him. He stood from his chair and pointed at the bots. He said, “All right, you two, go make sure Dummy takes down that shrine. I _do not_ need that in my tower.”

The bots reluctantly nodded and left the shop in search of Dummy.

 

* * *

 

So Tony had been avoiding him. Which was fine, you know, it was Tony’s decision. If Tony didn’t want to be friends with him anymore, then Steve needed to respect that. Boundaries. Besides he had probably been annoying Tony too much. Tony was always working and he just took up residence in the workshop, not caring if he was a distraction. Really, Steve should have realized this. Just because they weren’t at each other’s throats like back at the helicarrier didn’t mean that they were the best of friends.

It seemed as if every time Steve entered a room and Tony was there, Tony made quick excuses to leave. Like “oh I just remembered I have a huge stack of legal documents to sign and Pepper will castrate me if I don’t get them done.” Or “I need to prepare for this very important shareholders’ meeting, you know how it is running a corporation.” Basically any task Tony hated doing and would avoid like the plague. Yet Tony would rather do them than spend time with Steve.

Okay, Rogers, that was pathetic even for you.

Steve shook his head to clear his wandering thoughts and tried to focus on the book he was reading.

Natasha was next to him, painting her nails dark blue while watching a documentary about bears. She barely acknowledged when he sat down next to her with his book. In fact, this was how most of his time spent with Natasha went. Sitting down and quietly enjoying each other’s company. It was rather calming.

When he couldn’t get himself immersed in reading again, he set the book aside and leaned back into the sofa. He watched as a mother bear tried to find food for her cubs.

“So are you going to talk or are you going to keep brooding?” Natasha said as she checked over her hand for any imperfections.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

She hummed, deciding her left hand was adequate and moving onto her right.

“I think Tony’s mad at me.”

“Why would Tony be mad?”

Steve sighed. “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Then maybe he isn’t mad.”

“Why else would he be ignoring me?”

Natasha turned to give him a sharp look. After a moment she chuckled almost silently. As always it seemed Natasha knew something he didn’t. “Maybe you should just talk to him,” she said.

“If Tony doesn’t want to speak to me, then I should respect that.”

“I don’t think that’s the problem.”

“Then what is?”

She shook her head. “Talk to him. Now leave me in peace, you’re distracting me.”

“But you’re the one who—”

“Shh.”

Bemused, he left the living room.

And almost knocked right into the bastard himself.

“Um,” Tony said. He grinned at Steve self-consciously.

“Tony!” For a scary moment, Steve wondered if Tony had overheard him and Natasha. But judging by how fidgety Tony was, and how it looked like he was trying to figure out a way to leave the situation politely, Tony was probably too focused on avoiding Steve to realize what they were talking about.

“Hey, Cap, you’re looking very good, very healthy. All that cardio.” He reached out for Steve’s bicep before remembering himself and pulling back. “Uh, science! Right. I need to go do science now!”

“Tony, we need to talk,” Steve blurted.

Tony turned to give him a sort of terrified look and Steve wondered what he’d done to make Tony look at him like that. “Why would we need to talk? I thought everything was… peachy keen?”

“It’s just—” Steve ran his fingers through his hair, shrugging helplessly. “You’ve been avoiding me. And I totally respect if you don’t want… to be friends. But I’d like to know what I did wrong.”

Tony stared. He was silent for a long time, looking completely flabbergasted. “Wha…? What, what would make you think that? Of course you did nothing wrong!”

“Well with the way you’ve been acting, I thought maybe I accidentally offended you?”

Tony snorted at that. “Captain America offensive?”

“Hey, I know Captain America can be a dick sometimes.”

They both chuckled at that.

Tony’s hands were in his pockets and his shoulders were hunched, as if trying to make himself look as small as possible. He gave Steve a bashful sort of look, which was a word Steve never thought he would associate with Tony. “It’s not you, I was just… I don’t know how to explain it.”

Okay. Okay, Steve can work with that. Because at least that meant that Tony didn’t hate him. He smiled. “Maybe we can go out to eat and figure it out together? I’ve barely seen you all week.”

“That… sounds good. But I’m kind of in the middle of something important down in the shop.”

At the no doubt dejected expression on Steve’s face, Tony hurriedly added, “If you give me a few hours, I can finish it up and we can have some dinner?”

Steve beamed. “Yeah. I don’t mind waiting. I know how busy you are, Tony.”

“Okay, how about at seven? I won’t be late, JARVIS will alert me, won’t you, buddy?”

“Certainly, sir.” Strangely, the AI sounded pleased, beyond just being polite.

“That works for me,” Steve said. He knew he probably looked stupidly happy, and that this was simply two friends eating together, totally platonic, totally not a date, but he couldn’t help it.

Tony grinned. “All right, see you then.”

Once Tony was gone, Natasha popped her head out into the hall. Of course the superspy had overheard everything. She said, “In ten minutes my nails will be dry. Then you and me are going to spar. And don’t even think of fucking up my nails.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Nat.” He needed to let out all this nervous energy anyway.

 

* * *

 

Tony was late for everything. It was like one of those laws of science, where it was expected to be true every time and if it wasn’t, there was something seriously wrong with the space-time continuum. He was late to shareholders’ meetings, to R&D meetings, to legal consultations, to PR conferences, to charity galas—even his own. It was to the point that Pepper had to lie to him about the time, swearing up and down it would start three hours earlier, and he would still be late.

But this was Steve. Steve, who thought Tony didn’t like him anymore and was still somehow willing to be ignored as long as it made Tony happy. And Tony felt like such an asshole, Christ, but he was going to fix it. With a totally-not-date.

Tony kept his promise and finished the schematics for R&D five minutes to seven. He just needed to change into something that wasn’t a holey Slayer shirt and ripped jeans, fix his hair a little, maybe some cologne, and he’d be totally ready for his not-date. Because this was a platonic outing between two best friends. Totally.

He locked everything up in his workshop and moved into the elevator, trying to appease his nerves. Casual.

He wasn’t too sure how he was going to explain his odd behavior to Steve. Sure, he could lie like always, but Steve didn’t deserve that. Steve deserved the truth—a very abridged version of the truth, but the truth nonetheless.

For example: no mention of Dummy’s creepy obsession with him. At all. Steve seemed to think Tony’s a great guy, and he’d like to keep it that way. If Steve knew, he’d move out of the tower immediately and find a little cottage in Iceland or something.

And as for Tony’s feelings, well, he could lie and bluff and deflect like he normally would in embarrassing situations, but the thing was he wanted it. He wanted Steve. He wanted to be in a relationship with the guy and do all those corny, lovey-dovey things couples do. After his failed relationship with Pepper, he figured he’d never have a shot at real love again. But Steve actually liked him for some weird reason, and he would laugh at all of Tony’s dumb jokes like they were the funniest shit he’d ever heard. And sometimes Steve would look at Tony with his blue eyes and Tony would think that maybe he feels it too.

God, he was pathetic. But still. Maybe.

As the elevator doors opened, JARVIS said, “Sir, there is something I’ve neglected to mention.”

“Now’s not the time, J. If it’s a meeting, reschedule,” Tony said as he walked across the penthouse, heading towards his bedroom.

“But, sir—”

“Can it, JARVIS.” He reached for the door handle and opened it.

All at once, three bots whipped their hands to face him and he stared right back.

“Are you fucking serious?” he groaned when he saw that damned blown up picture of Steve sitting on his bed. “Are you—Dummy!”

Dummy waved at him with his arm. He was at the foot of the bed, seemingly directing Butterfingers and You. Butterfingers was carefully spreading rose petals over the picture and the bed while You was placing candles on the bedside table. They all looked disgustingly pleased with themselves.

“JARVIS!”

“I apologize, sir, but they wanted to keep it a surprise.”

“What the fuck do you mean a surprise? I—Dummy! I told you to get rid of all that shit!”

“Dummy was uncomfortable with throwing away everything he’s worked on.”

“‘Everything he’s worked on’? Jesus Christ, Dummy, what is _wrong_ with you?”

Dummy beeped sadly and slumped his whole body in a dejected pose.

JARVIS added, “He wanted to give you all his work. He thought you’d appreciate it.”

“Appreciate!” Tony spluttered. “I’m not a stalker like you, Dummy, what the hell were you thinking? Why’d you give candles to You? Was You supposed to light them afterwards because I swear to God—”

Dummy rolled right up to Tony abruptly and waved his arm as if trying to refocus Tony’s attention.

“What now?”

Dummy gestured at the ceiling and then to the bed, where Tony noticed a small device not unlike a tablet was sitting next to the picture, propped up on the pillows. “Yes, Dummy,” came JARVIS’ weary tone and a hologram appeared at the far wall. And because someone must hate Tony, it was playing that fucking video that Dummy made.

Tony sighed. “You are so fucking creepy.”

“If I may, sir, Dummy really did mean this as a way to show you how much you matter to him,” JARVIS said.

Dummy was looking at him expectantly and Tony couldn’t help it. He patted his strut. “I know, buddy, I know this is your way of being nice to me. But you and me are going to have a stern talk about boundaries. And you two,” he said in a louder voice, glancing at Butterfingers and You, who were beginning to whine, “we are going to have a lovely chat about the evils of peer pressure, you understand me?” He surveyed the room once more and winced when he found a pile of printed photos of Steve on another table. “Okay, you guys are going to need to clean all this up and—”

“Tony, you in here? You were taking a long time and I thought—”

Well, fuck him.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t every day where you went looking for your best friend, only to find said best friend in his room with his bots surrounded by images of yourself. Yeah, it was that kind of day.

Steve was waiting for him on the communal floor. He knew Tony had a tendency to be late to every social function, despite Tony assuring him he’d be on time. Still he glanced up at the ceiling and asked, “JARVIS, where’s Tony?”

The weirdest thing was that the AI seemed evasive and uncomfortable when he answered. “He is… in his bedroom, Captain.”

Steve’s brows furrowed. “Is something wrong with him?”

There was a way-too-long pause and JARVIS said, “I do not believe I am at liberty to tell you.”

Oh no. Did Tony get hurt while working in the lab? He had a tendency to ignore his injuries, even if they were severe, and several times the team had to coerce him to be checked out by at least Bruce. “JARVIS, am I allowed to go to Tony’s floor?”

“Well, Sir hasn’t prohibited it.”

“Good.” He squared his shoulders and prepared himself to drag Tony to the medbay.

Except now Tony didn’t look hurt. In fact Tony looked completely fine, except for the fact he looked completely terrified like he was expecting Steve to hit him.

There was a beat of silence and Tony said, “I know this looks bad, but this isn’t what it looks like.”

Right. Of course there must be a perfectly logical explanation as to why there was a huge picture of himself on Tony’s bed, surrounded by rose petals. And why there were more photos on his bedside tables along with white candles. And why there was a video of himself projected on the far wall. A video that was currently showing an unknown intruder entering Steve’s bedroom, zooming in on his unaware and unconscious body.

“You see,” Tony continued, “this was all Dummy’s fault.”

“Dummy,” Steve repeated.

“Yes. Remember how he was recording you all the time, and then later you found him in your room at night. Recording you again. Without your consent.”

“Yes, I remember,” Steve said dryly.

“You see, he kind of got this weird new hobby that includes, um. Well, he made a shrine of you.”

“A shrine.”

“Yeah, it was in a maintenance closet and I caught him in it. That’s where that huge poster comes from. And he wasn’t, like, jerking it or anything, ‘cause you know he is a robot, robots can’t really jerk it.” Tony was gesturing, his hands flying through the air. Beside him Dummy was gesturing too, letting out all depressive-sounding beeps. It was almost comical how the robot was mimicking Tony right now. “And one day I found him in his little weird ass shrine and I told him to take it down and get rid of it. But I guess he decided to pass on all his stuff to me, because that’s his weird ass way of being nice. So I just walked right in, like literally ten minutes ago, to all of these dumbasses decorating my room like this. I had literally nothing to do with this.”

Steve pressed both hands to his temple and rubbed his fingers into his eyes. “Okay, I believe you.” Tony visibly relaxed and so did Dummy. “But what I want to know is why Dummy thought you would get the most use out of… this.”

Tony tensed immediately again. His eyes glanced to the side and Steve knew he was going to lie, so he added, “Why don’t you skip the bullshit and tell me the truth?”

Tony laughed. “Seriously? What do you want to hear? That I—I’m so pathetically in love with you that my robot noticed and adopted that behavior in a way less subtle way? That it’s not just Dummy, but Butterfingers and You and even JARVIS that are fond of you? That JARVIS has been on my back all week to put a move on you and that’s why I’ve been avoiding you this whole time? Dummy set all this up because he knows I’m an absolute goner for you and he wanted to give me something nice for taking care of him because for some reason that’s the way his stupid programming works.” Tony’s eyes were anxious as they scrutinized his face. “Look, if you’re going to punch me, just do it.”

Steve nodded. “Okay.” He moved forward and took Tony’s chin in his hand gently, tilted it up and reached his lips.

It was a very sweet kiss. A kiss that made Steve ached to turn it into something deeper and headier, but he kept it light. He figured there would be other times for those kinds of kisses. It only lasted a few moments and when Steve pulled back, he saw Tony’s eyes were closed, his lashes fanning his cheeks. He slowly opened his eyes and mumbled, “That wasn’t a punch.”

“Did you really think I was going to punch you?”

“I thought you were angry.”

“Why would I be angry? I mean, I admit I was surprised—okay, very surprised,” he amended when he saw the skeptical look on Tony’s face. “When I came up here, I thought you were hurt.”

“Why would I be hurt?” Tony said, looking at him like he was the crazy one.

“I asked JARVIS where you were and he was acting weird. I know now it was because of this.” Steve gestured at the room.

“So this really doesn’t bother you?”

Steve laughed. “Tony, when you were avoiding me, I was so worried that I thought I said something terrible to you, something that made you hate me all over again. I spent days trying to figure out how I’ve hurt you. This seems so insignificant in comparison.”

“You have to admit this is pretty weird.”

“Well yeah. When I walked in here and saw your bed, I thought you were getting ready for a self-loving session. And I got jealous of my own photo.”

Tony snorted.

“And I won’t lie: Dummy has been creeping me out lately.” They both looked at the bot, who was so overjoyed at this latest development that he missed the disapproving stares aimed at him. “How did he get the idea for all of this?”

“Rom-coms.”

“Ah.”

Tony chuckled and shook his head. “Oh god, this is so ridiculous.”

Steve leaned in to steal another kiss. “Come on, get ready now. We have a date, remember?”

“A totally-not-platonic date,” Tony agreed.

Tony reluctantly stepped away from Steve and headed towards his closet, patting Dummy on his way. Dummy beeped happily.

 

* * *

 

Afterwards, when the two Avengers were gone, Dummy was cleaning up Tony’s room. His brothers had gone back down to the workshop and JARVIS was not nagging him for once. He left the rose petals and the candles, figuring that later that night his creator might find use for them, like in the movies.

He swept all the photos into a container with a handle, where he’ll take them to be recycled. He settled the framed photo against the wall, with the back facing the room, so that maybe his creator will be less creeped out. The tablet went back into the table drawer. He gripped the container’s handle firmly and picked it up.

He dropped it.

The pictures scattered on the floor, but Dummy went back to his task of cleaning it all up with no complaint. He hesitated on one photo of Steve, shirtless and sweaty, but grinning from exercise endorphins.

Dummy tucked it into his base and ensured it wouldn’t fall before gathering up the container again.

They won’t notice if he kept just one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the end of this, I had realized that Dummy is a stevetony shipper who was very happy to see his two favorite persons together and that his meatball-dorito photo collection was well and thriving. I expect he got his own tumblr after this with the help of his brother JARVIS.
> 
> Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this. I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope my writing didn't suck too bad this time.
> 
> Um, here's [my tumblr](http://souldiertotheend.tumblr.com/), y'know, if you want to talk to me about superhusbands or anything to do with marvel, really.


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